Schiphol has wrongly terminated a contract with construction companies Ballast Nedam and TAV, according to the Amsterdam court. They were supposed to build the A-pier for the airport, but Schiphol was dissatisfied and stopped the collaboration. This may now cost the airport a lot of money.
The construction companies received the news in 2021 and took Schiphol to court at the end of 2023. The airport was not satisfied with the quality and progress of the A-pier project and prematurely terminated the collaboration.
According to the court, the shortcomings were not serious enough for that. The parties must now come to a solution together, otherwise the judge will consider it.
The construction of the A-pier started in 2018 and should have been completed in 2020. It is a section where passengers can board and disembark from aircraft, intended to cope with the increasing pressure at the airport.
Schiphol and BN/TAV, a company of Ballast Nedam and TAV, were still diametrically opposed to each other at the hearing at the beginning of April. The construction companies want hundreds of millions of euros in compensation, while Schiphol believes that it has paid 60 million euros too much and reclaimed that amount.
The construction companies blame the problems on the lack of an A-pier design elaborated by Schiphol.
A-pier must be ready for use by the end of 2026
The court agrees with the construction companies. The judge also takes into account the consequences for the many subcontractors, who suddenly lost a lot of planned work.
BAM took over the work for the A-pier in 2022. The expectation is that the pier will be ready for use by the end of next year. Last year, Schiphol estimated that the project would cost almost 1.4 billion euros, more than double the amount estimated years earlier.